Code SwitchNPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94NPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94Code SwitchFri, 09 Dec 2016 15:42:45 +0000Code Switchhttp://wemu.org
Gene DembyThis post has been updated. We tend to think of a race as a static thing, but it's always been much more slippery. American history has seen lots of immigrant groups that were the targets of suspicion and even racial violence — Jews, the Irish, Germans, Italians — gradually subsumed into the big, amorphous category of whiteness. The trajectory of that shift has been a little different for each of those groups — and, notably, was informed by the fact that they were not black — but that's been the general template of immigrant assimilation. For much of our history, the process of becoming American has meant becoming white. ( Word to Nell Irvin Painter .) A lot of people wonder if the same might eventually happen to Latinos, who sit at the center of contemporary conversations and anxieties around immigration. The New York Times' Nate Cohn beat that drum last month after coming across some preliminary research from the Census Bureau. The researchers were given access to anonymous censusWhat Is Your Race? For Millions Of Americans, A Shifting Answerhttp://wemu.org/post/what-your-race-millions-americans-shifting-answer
47026 as http://wemu.orgMon, 09 Jun 2014 13:43:00 +0000What Is Your Race? For Millions Of Americans, A Shifting AnswerKaren Grigsby BatesBefore he became famous — and infamous — for calling on black power for black people, Stokely Carmichael was better known as a rising young community organizer in the civil rights movement. The tall, handsome philosophy major from Howard University spent summers in the South, working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, known as SNCC, to get African-Americans in Alabama and Mississippi registered to vote in the face of tremendous, often violent resistance from segregationists. Historian Peniel Joseph's new biography of Carmichael, titled Stokely: A Life , shows that for a time, the Trinidad-born New Yorker was everywhere that counted in the South, a real-life Zelig: "He is an organizer who had his hand in every major demonstration and event that occurs between 1960-1965." Joseph, a professor at Tufts University, says Carmichael was ever-present in what he considers "the second half of the civil rights movement's heroic period." (After the Montgomery Bus Boycott andStokely Carmichael, A Philosopher Behind The Black Power Movementhttp://wemu.org/post/stokely-carmichael-philosopher-behind-black-power-movement
42572 as http://wemu.orgMon, 10 Mar 2014 14:11:00 +0000Stokely Carmichael, A Philosopher Behind The Black Power MovementeditorNPR Books and Code Switch are winding down Black History Month in style: We've asked three of our favorite comic artists to illustrate something — a person, a poem, a play, a book, a song — that inspires them. Afua Richardson is an award-winning illustrator who's worked for Image, Marvel and DC Comics. She's chosen Langston Hughes' great poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." And you can see Richardson's video, created from these panels, here . Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.Blood And Water: Illustrating Langston Hughes' 'Rivers'http://wemu.org/post/blood-and-water-illustrating-langston-hughes-rivers
42138 as http://wemu.orgThu, 27 Feb 2014 15:26:24 +0000Blood And Water: Illustrating Langston Hughes' 'Rivers'Gene DembyForty years after its birth, hip-hop is everywhere, a global signifier of youthfulness and subversion and opulence and Americanness and blackness and menace, sometimes all at once. But for all the glorification of hip-hop's early days in the South Bronx — the brilliant improvisation, the block parties — there isn't a whole lot of supporting documentation. A lot of what we know is from the fading memories of aging b-girls and b-boys who were present at the creation. Some of the most important surviving documents from that period were the party flyers. You may remember the story our colleagues at NPR music did on the party where hip-hop was born and the flyer advertising the jam at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue at a cost of 25 cents for the "ladies" and 50 cents for the "fellas." That flyer consisted of some scribbled writing on lined paper. The party flyers of Lemoin Thompson — a.k.a. Buddy Esquire — were much more sophisticated than that. Esquire created more than 300 flyers over a half-decadeRemembering Buddy Esquire, The King Of Hip-Hop Flyershttp://wemu.org/post/remembering-buddy-esquire-king-hip-hop-flyers
41981 as http://wemu.orgMon, 24 Feb 2014 15:41:01 +0000Remembering Buddy Esquire, The King Of Hip-Hop FlyerseditorIt takes a special kind of actor to mix bombast and fatuousness to comic effect — think Alec Baldwin in 30 Rock or Will Ferrell in Anchorman . But the all-time King of Pomposity was the late Ted Knight. He played the role of newscaster Ted Baxter in the Mary Tyler Moore Show and Judge Elihu Smails in Caddyshack . Aside from being a status-crazed schmuck, the Smails character is a racist who calls locker room attendant Smoke Porterhouse a "colored boy." In a sublime act of retaliation, Porterhouse tries to destroy a pair of shoes belonging to Smails, who is president of the country club. The judge, not knowing how the shoes got to be in their deplorable condition, huffily demands that Porterhouse repair the damage: "Oh, Porterhouse! Look at the wax buildup on these shoes. I want that wax stripped off there, then I want them creamed and buffed with a fine chamois, and I want them now. Chop - chop ." I cannot think of a more condescending way to tell someone to hurry up than telling themQuick! What Are The Origins Of 'Chop-Chop'?http://wemu.org/post/quick-what-are-origins-chop-chop
41976 as http://wemu.orgMon, 24 Feb 2014 14:03:00 +0000Quick! What Are The Origins Of 'Chop-Chop'?editorThough we hear a lot about bombings and physical attacks, efforts to take down leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement came in many forms. Rev. Joseph E. Lowery knows that all too well. He, along with Fred Shuttlesworth, Ralph Abernathy, and Solomon Seay, was a defendant in New York Times v. Sullivan. Though known widely as a case that defended freedom of the press, L.B. Sullivan, the Montgomery police commissioner, also sued Lowery et al for defamation over the advertisement, “Heed Their Rising Voices.” The full-page ad detailed ways in which authorities in the south terrorized non-violent protesters. Here, Rev. Lowery talks about the case as it was argued before the Supreme Court, and the unexpected fallout as a result.Moments of the Movement: Joseph Loweryhttp://wemu.org/post/moments-movement-joseph-lowery
41365 as http://wemu.orgWed, 12 Feb 2014 12:35:00 +0000Moments of the Movement: Joseph LoweryEditorNearly 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, many of the Southern states in America were segregated and openly oppressive to African Americans. With themes of civil resistance, nonviolent protests, boycotts and voting rights at the heart of the Civil Rights Movement, there was another constant theme for Movement activists: danger. As a college student active with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Gwendolyn Simmons thought there was a surefire way to maximize her safety.Moments of the Movement: Gwendolyn Simmonshttp://wemu.org/post/moments-movement-gwendolyn-simmons
41364 as http://wemu.orgTue, 11 Feb 2014 12:35:00 +0000Moments of the Movement: Gwendolyn SimmonsPatrik HolubikThe bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham was a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement. But for Freeman Hrabowski, now president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, it was personal. The Birmingham native was part of the movement as a child, and knew Cynthia Wesley, one of the four girls killed that morning. Here, he explains how the events of that day and the aftermath not only forever changed him, but Birmingham as well, and eventually, the country. Each morning at 7:30 in February, experience the unheralded histories and testimonials of individuals who participated in the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s.Moments of the Movement: Freeman Hrabowski on Birmingham Bombing (part 2)http://wemu.org/post/moments-movement-freeman-hrabowski-birmingham-bombing-part-2
41334 as http://wemu.orgMon, 10 Feb 2014 12:35:00 +0000Moments of the Movement: Freeman Hrabowski on Birmingham Bombing (part 2)editorWith so much on the line, one might think that everyone in the Black community would be on the same page when it came to fighting for civil rights. But Birmingham native Freeman Hrabowski explains that many middle-class African-Americans worried that there could be serious consequences for families of protesters. Now the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Hrabowski was one of the few middle-class children who not only joined the protests, but was trained to lead and protect the younger children who were often the catalyst for change in the movement.Moments of the Movement: Freeman Hrabowski (part 1)http://wemu.org/post/moments-movement-freeman-hrabowski-part-1
41332 as http://wemu.orgMon, 10 Feb 2014 00:54:54 +0000Moments of the Movement: Freeman Hrabowski (part 1)Patrik HolubikIt seems almost natural that a movement with an aim of racial equity would include the young and the old, men and women, Northerners and Southerners, as well as various races. The husband and wife team of David and Toko Ackerman were true representations of this diversity. David, a self-proclaimed product of a lily-white community in Illinois, and his Japanese-born wife also reflect the various reasons that people were drawn to fight for change. The egregious racial violence in Selma, Ala., was Toko’s impetus to turn her attention toward race relations, while David’s involvement in the movement would occur almost by accident.Moments of the Movement: David and Toko Ackermanhttp://wemu.org/post/moments-movement-david-and-toko-ackerman
41216 as http://wemu.orgFri, 07 Feb 2014 12:35:00 +0000Moments of the Movement: David and Toko AckermanGene Dembyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8iM73E6JP8 It happened again. Last night during the Super Bowl, Coca-Cola aired an ad that featured snapshots from a multicultural America — a family sitting down for dinner at a restaurant; children on a road trip, pointing at mountains; teenagers tap-dancing on the street; dads roller skating. The scenes were overlaid with a rendition of "America The Beautiful," with lyrics sung in several different languages. This ad set the teeth of some Twitter nativists on edge — This is America! Speak English! — which shouldn't be surprising by now. Bigots gon' bigot. We saw it with that Cheerios ad from last year. We saw it with the Miss America pageant. We saw it with that cute kid who sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the Spurs game. We saw it with the casting of Rue in the first Hunger Games movie. Racism on Social Media is a genre of news story at this point, so we're not going to do it each time it happens. People have always said and will always say theseQuarterback Russell Wilson Sets A Milestone, And Everyone Shrugshttp://wemu.org/post/quarterback-russell-wilson-sets-milestone-and-everyone-shrugs
41217 as http://wemu.orgFri, 07 Feb 2014 07:40:10 +0000Quarterback Russell Wilson Sets A Milestone, And Everyone ShrugseditorWith the physical safety of civil rights workers at stake, it was imperative that trained medical practitioners be on hand during protests. The Medical Committee for Human Rights served that purpose. Dr. Alfred Moldovan, a founding member of the group, was there to treat protesters at the scene of one of the most disturbing incidences of violence during the movement as SNCC workers crossed the Edmund Pettis Bridge. Here, he describes the scene and how he tried to prepare workers to protect themselves during future protests. Each morning at 7:30 in February, experience the unheralded histories and testimonials of individuals who participated in the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s.Moments of the Movement: Alfred Moldovanhttp://wemu.org/post/moments-movement-alfred-moldovan
41108 as http://wemu.orgWed, 05 Feb 2014 12:35:00 +0000Moments of the Movement: Alfred MoldovaneditorFor the past few weeks, we've convened a conversation about romance across racial and cultural lines. Some of the most eloquent accounts we encountered came from a Bay Area junior high school teacher named Noah Cho. We asked him to expand on some of his experiences in this essay. It's an odd feeling, as an adult, to look at a photo of your parents and feel perplexed by it. As a young child, I believed that most sets of parents looked like mine — a Korean man, a white woman — and it never registered to me that other parents looked different, or that their love could be something culturally undesirable. But as I have moved through 32 years of looking at myself in the mirror, a time in which the vast majority of interracial couples I have known have looked nothing like my parents, I have come to see their love as something rare. Most men in interracial couples I have encountered do not look like my dad. They do not have his skin tone, or his combination of dark hair and dark eyes. My momHow I Learned To Feel Undesirablehttp://wemu.org/post/how-i-learned-feel-undesirable
41079 as http://wemu.orgTue, 04 Feb 2014 17:18:00 +0000How I Learned To Feel Undesirableeditorhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbWeH9cztHw You might remember that Cheerios ad that caused a big hullabaloo last summer — and boy, is that a weird phrase to write — after it enraged all the knuckle-draggers on the Internet. Were they scandalized by General Mills' claims that Cheerios is good for heart health? Or were they really militant adherents of the Paleo Diet ? Haha! No, you silly naif! They were just bigots. The ad featured an adorable, curly haired moppet named Gracie chatting with her mother, who is white. Her father is black. The official YouTube video for the ad was inundated with so many ugly comments that General Mills pulled the TV spot from the site because they decided the reaction was no longer family friendly. The move only brought more attention to the ad, as people wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Tons of people had the opposite reaction , praising Cheerios for spotlighting an interracial family and the ad's profound awwww-ness. (Some other folks used itThat Cute Cheerios Ad With The Interracial Family Is Back http://wemu.org/post/cute-cheerios-ad-interracial-family-back
41035 as http://wemu.orgMon, 03 Feb 2014 20:20:27 +0000That Cute Cheerios Ad With The Interracial Family Is Back editorEditor's Note: Code Switch is engaged in a month-long discussion and exploration of interracial and cross-cultural dating. Follow the conversation via the Twitter hashtag #xculturelove . My first kiss was with an Albanian man I met in Venice, Italy; within hours, Jeta and I were telling each other, " Ti amo. " I didn't mean it any more than I knew his last name (and I won't kid myself into thinking there was much sincerity on his end). As my fleeting romance with Jeta proved, the Italian language holds very little emotional weight for me. In English, my native language, I don't make a habit of telling strangers, "I love you." In any cross-cultural relationship that is also bilingual, there is a fundamental question that needs to be answered: What is going to be the couple's language of romance? My mom, even after 30-odd years in the U.S., still heavily favors her native Arabic over her adopted English. It's how she counts out loud, writes grocery lists, yells at slow drivers in trafficDoes It Taste As Sweet To Say 'I Love You' In Another Language?http://wemu.org/post/does-it-taste-sweet-say-i-love-you-another-language
41034 as http://wemu.orgMon, 03 Feb 2014 20:20:15 +0000Does It Taste As Sweet To Say 'I Love You' In Another Language?editorThe courtroom was the ultimate battleground in the war for equal rights for all of America’s citizens, and among the names of African-American lawyers who fought on this stage is that of Matthew J. Perry Jr. Perry was the first African-American lawyer from South Carolina to ascend to the federal bench, and the federal courthouse in Columbia now bears his name. But before all that, Perry was a young lawyer attempting to try cases in the deep South, often before biased and racist judges. Perry explains how he got around the judge who routinely found his clients guilty—before he even heard the evidence. Each morning at 7:30 in February, experience the unheralded histories and testimonials of individuals who participated in the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s.Moments of the Movement: Matthew Perryhttp://wemu.org/post/moments-movement-matthew-perry
40997 as http://wemu.orgMon, 03 Feb 2014 12:35:00 +0000Moments of the Movement: Matthew PerryeditorFor former United States Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod, experiencing the death of her father at the hands of a white farmer while growing up in rural Georgia in the 1960s forced her to abandon some of her dreams and propelled her commitment to fight for civil rights. This commitment included fighting for the right to vote and working to create new communities in rural areas. Each morning at 7:30 in February, experience the unheralded histories and testimonials of individuals who participated in the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s.Moments of the Movement: Shirley Sherrodhttp://wemu.org/post/moments-movement-shirley-sherrod
40996 as http://wemu.orgSun, 02 Feb 2014 15:12:25 +0000Moments of the Movement: Shirley SherrodeditorOur poll on the life experiences of Latino Americans underscored just how different those experiences can be. But many of the most interesting comparisons among our respondents were between folks who were born here in the United States or Puerto Rico and those who were born elsewhere and came here later. A little more than half of the nearly 1,500 participants said they were born outside the U.S., a proportion roughly consistent with the breakdown in the larger U.S. population. (The specific percentage born outside the U.S. varied among the different Latino subgroups in our sample — Mexicans, Dominicans, Central Americans, South Americans and Cubans — and when it came to the ages at which they arrived in the U.S.) The researchers identified immigrants by asking respondents first if they were Latino and then if they were born in the United States or Puerto Rico. Those who weren't the latter were classified as "immigrants," although we acknowledge that the term is somewhat imperfect. Poll Of U.S. Latinos Offers Snapshot Of Immigrant Vs. Nonimmigrant Experiencehttp://wemu.org/post/poll-us-latinos-offers-snapshot-immigrant-vs-nonimmigrant-experience
40766 as http://wemu.orgTue, 28 Jan 2014 17:12:40 +0000Poll Of U.S. Latinos Offers Snapshot Of Immigrant Vs. Nonimmigrant ExperienceeditorFor generations, the phrase "sold down the river" has been used to signify a profound betrayal. "River" was a literal reference to the Mississippi or Ohio rivers. For much of the first half of the 19th century, Louisville, Ky., was one of the largest slave-trading marketplaces in the country. Slaves would be taken to Louisville to be "sold down the river" and transported to the cotton plantations in states further south. In his 2010 history of the Mississippi River, Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild journalist Lee Sandlin said "the threat of being 'sold down the river' was seen as tantamount to a death sentence." Because white planters valued men over women as laborers, male slaves were far more likely to be "sold down the river." In addition to the tragedy of being separated from family, to be sent down the river meant a sentence of brutally hard labor. As the global demand for cotton grew, the demand for more and more slave labor grew at an equally large pace.What Does 'Sold Down The River' Really Mean? The Answer Isn't Prettyhttp://wemu.org/post/what-does-sold-down-river-really-mean-answer-isnt-pretty
40764 as http://wemu.orgTue, 28 Jan 2014 17:12:32 +0000What Does 'Sold Down The River' Really Mean? The Answer Isn't PrettyeditorNot many people can say they've experienced the world both as an Arab-Latino woman and as an Arab-Latino man. Sami Younes can. Younes, 26, was once Mariam, a Lebanese and Puerto Rican woman. When he began his physical transition three years ago to become a man, the way people reacted to his change surprised him. "This never happened to me before my transition," Younes said. "I'll be walking down the street and I'll see someone coming toward me. And if they're alone, they'll just change to the other side of the street. They look at me and they get afraid, and I see the fear in their eyes. "I'm not going to hurt anybody ... but people walk away from me now." Younes said he had experienced racial remarks in the past, ranging from someone complimenting his spoken English to a stranger telling him that he was evil because of his race. But as a man, he's gained a new awareness of the stereotypes that people might associate with him, many based on race and sex. "While I would not regret myWhat Sami Discovered On The Way To Becoming A Man Of Colorhttp://wemu.org/post/what-sami-discovered-way-becoming-man-color
40582 as http://wemu.orgFri, 24 Jan 2014 02:19:19 +0000What Sami Discovered On The Way To Becoming A Man Of Color